In our today’s economy, every cent counts and adding them to your bottom line is possible in the middle of economic crisis. Are are some steps that will increase your profits, by boosting your sales, reducing debit card fees and expenses, and most of all block theft.

In the food service industry, if you’re running a restaurant point of sale system then this simple tips can greatly help you grow your business!

Checks

Checks are still widely used, especially among older customers. So if you have not been accepting checks, start soon. There are POS equipments that can scan checks as fast as credit cards, measure them against a nationwide database of bad check writers, electronically deposit the money, and can guarantee that funds will be delivered to you within a couple of days. In addition, the cost is typically lower than for credit cards and could add 10-15 percent to sales—and possibly more if you have many senior customers.

Accepting Credit Cards

If you do accept credit cards, you’re probably accepting Visa and MasterCard already. But what about Discover and American Express? Particularly, the latter accompanies larger transactions in general. If you’ve hesitated because the fee is higher, reconsider—you may also think that it’s not worth it even a 1% difference, and because American Express transactions are often larger than those of other cards, you’ll make it up in gross profit. Furthermore, customers will coming back because they’ll know that your business accepts all forms of credit cards.

Researching

Most merchants think their fees are 1.69% plus an additional $.19 because that’s their qualified rate on a pricing program tier. Though fewer than 20 of 100 transactions receives low qualified rate and all the rest downgrade and cost one, two, or even three percent. By researching for alternate programs that offer different interchange rates that may end up saving more than what you’ve expected.

Insist of Understanding Rather Than Having a Conflict

Neither you nor your bookkeeper would have to scratch the back of your heads over a complex credit card statement that just doesn’t fit. A few companies have made extraordinary efforts to simplify these reports. You should be able to reconcile your statement and rates without exceeding 15 minutes.

Getting Your Reports Online

The post office is slow, don’t wait any longer for them to deliver you a letter of disputing a charge. Using the internet, you will know within 24 hours, which ables you to aggressively defend against chargebacks. With a quick response, it can increase your success rates and reduce your losses.

No need to scratch your head over complex credit card statements and for your bookkeeper as well.

Use the Card Validation Value and Address Verification System. They are highly effective fraud screens proven to reduce losses, and when using them correctly, you obtain the lowest possible rate for discounts.

In addition, you need to avoid hackers by being PCI compliant. Hackers can cause merchants huge fines, and drive them out of business. Find time to read Visa’s report on noncompliant systems, be alert at all cost.

Taking Care Of Chargebacks

If you run an online business, either by internet orders or by phone, it’s always a great idea to implement the “Verified by Visa” or “MasterCard Secure Code” plug-in on your web site. This will eliminate cardholder nonauthorization chargebacks. Liability for these chargebacks is shifted away back to the issuing card bank, and you qualify for the lowest discount rate available. Just by following this simple step, you can eliminate up to 80% of all chargebacks and increase your profits.

With over 20 years of restaurant point of sale experience and helping businesses in the food-service industry nationwide increase their efficiency and bottom-line profits, the author of this article is the VP of Customer Relations at POS-For-Restaurants.com.

You may visit POS-For-Restaurants.com for further understanding of how our national network of restaurant point of sale professionals can help your business achieve greater success in these difficult economic times.

Few of the best restaurant POS software that can help you save time, lower costs and increase profit!

You may not consider getting into the restaurant business because it’s not one of well known high-tech endeavor. Even so, numerous restaurant Point of Sale software programs are being developed in order to help boost the restaurant business. And there’s more good news: most of this software costs less for smaller retail businesses that operate only a few eateries or even a single location. The various software products currently available can help you:

1. Greatly increase profits|Double your profits|Increase your profits
2. Lower food costs
3. Streamline staff scheduling
4. Improve table and customer management
5. Improve customer reservations system
6. Gain complete control of inventory
7. Menu designs

Cost out your recipes

Accurate recipe costing can put you on the fast track to success. With the right figures, you can easily identify your most profitable meals as well as items that aren’t performing well. Software programs can help eliminate human error in this vital area.

Tables and reservation management

A reservation software can be very useful for managing reservations, cancellation, differentiate VIPs from regulars, track customer preferences and can even reduce no-shows. It can also help you maximize table management and improve your guest management.

Inventory control and tracking

Restaurant inventory management includes controlling quantities of goods, proper handling, re-stocking and delivering. It can be considered as the crucial part of business management, so it’s very important for the restaurant owner to have full control and keeping track of his invetory.

Recommended:

The best contacts and resources to help you make the right choice for your restaurant point of sale system are available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

Correct ordering and purchasing

Look for a POS software that streamlines the ordering and purchasing process, giving you more time to concentrate on revenue-generating activities.

Recommended:

The best contacts and resources to help you make the right choice for your restaurant point of sale (POS) systems are available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

Software for creating menu designs

If you make frequent changes to your menu or you simply don’t want the hassle and expense of hiring a graphic designer, use software that helps you create designer-quality menus.

Proper employee scheduling

Every restaurant owner knows that scheduling employees can be a real headache. When performed manually, the task is time-consuming and often results in mistakes, such as understaffing or overstaffing.

Recommended:

The best contacts and resources to help you make the right choice for your restaurant point of sale system are available at POS-For-Restaurants.com

A few simple advice that can really help your business’ growth

• When operating on more than one restaurant, it’s alway a wise decision to test-drive your software first on one before implementing it to all.
• Using your restaurant software programs’ powerful reporting features, you can easily review your sales, customers and menu. Analyze them and make changes, this will surely help you improve your performance and increase profits.